startup – The Cornell Daily Sunhttp://cornellsun.com
Independent Since 1880Mon, 13 Aug 2018 05:39:51 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.6.4http://i2.wp.com/cornellsun.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/cropped-red-on-white-website-icon-2.png?fit=32%2C32startup – The Cornell Daily Sunhttp://cornellsun.com
3232Food Delivery Startup to Kickoff in Ithaca this Fallhttp://cornellsun.com/2018/06/26/food-delivery-startup-to-kickoff-in-ithaca-this-fall/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss
http://cornellsun.com/2018/06/26/food-delivery-startup-to-kickoff-in-ithaca-this-fall/#respondTue, 26 Jun 2018 14:02:02 +0000http://cornellsun.com/?p=3488863Everybody Eats, a social startup created by Cornell students which plans to debut this fall, hopes to offer reduced-price food delivery service through collaborations with local restaurants to try and combat food insecurity faced by low-income families.

Co-founder of the organization, Imani Majied, ILR ’19 said in an email that the goal is to expand the opportunity to participate in food delivery services to individuals who are often excluded because they cannot afford it.

Majied revealed that when her co-founder Muhammad Ansari, an alumnus of Howard University, reached out to her with the initial concept last fall, she was “immediately excited” by it.

“Since working with Anabel’s Grocery as a freshman,” Majied said, “I’ve been passionate about fighting food insecurity and being a part of the solution. Access to affordable food is a struggle I’ve witnessed first-hand and I’ve seen how much it affects our campus and the Ithaca community. Another passion of mine is using business as a tool to empower communities instead of exploit them through social entrepreneurship.”

According to Majied, over a million meals a year in the Tompkins County are missed due to food insecurity and are not resolved by governmental assistance. Their mission is to “bridge that meal gap” and “provide low-income individuals options for affordable and accessible meals to help make it easier to avoid skipping meals.”

“For example, if we have just 10 restaurant partners who donate 10 meals a day in exchange for our food delivery service, we can bridge the meal gap by over 36,000 meals in the first year, and this is a conservative estimate,” Majied said.

Everybody Eats intends to accomplish their goal and make a social impact as a for-profit company rather than a nonprofit.

“We are following the path to becoming a B-Corp because operating as a for-profit business that measures our success by our social impact allows us to scale our impact and remain financially sustainable in ways the non-profit structure does not facilitate,” Majied said.

Majied said she has received financial resources and mentorship to assist her startup from programs at Cornell like Engaged Cornell, Office of Entrepreneurship, Office of Academic and Diversity Initiatives and the Dyson School.

“I am lucky to attend a school filled with so much incredible talent and students eager to work with Everybody Eats,” she added.

Regarding their plans for the upcoming semester, Majied said that they were still developing the application, but hope to have a trial version ready by the end of the summer. The plan during the fall is to increase interest amongst customers and to build relationships with restaurants and drivers.

Founded in 2016, MioTech is “an artificial intelligence platform that empowers financial institutions to better manage and draw insights on their data,” Liu told The Sun.

Although the company may not be the first to incorporate machine learning in the finance industry, “in our space, we are still an innovator,” Liu said.

MioTech draws on “cutting-edge data visualization, information retrieval and machine learning” to answer complex finance questions and has the mission of “unlocking financial intelligence,” according to Liu.

“Finance cares a lot about efficiency and cost, so new technology will definitely play a big role,” he said.

Liu said they chose to take on the Asian market because they know it better and because China, Hong Kong and Singapore were a sufficiently large market to start with. Liu hopes to bring MioTech into the U.S. market once his product is mature enough.

According to Forbes, MioTech has raised $8 million from ZhenFund and Horizon Ventures, business magnate Sir Ka-shing Li’s private investment firm.

For Liu, the most rewarding aspect of his work is making the finance industry more efficient. He said he hopes a similar technology to the one that powers his product “can help other sectors as well in the future.”

Like any entrepreneur, Liu faced challenges as he was getting his company started. The biggest problem Liu said he had was tailoring a product to a customer’s needs.

Liu described how one time MioTech worked on a project for a customer for over six weeks before finding out that the client needed something “much more simple than we thought.”

While at Cornell, Liu said that the University provided “global insights” and a network of “top talents” and resources.

Liu’s advice for current students is to learn to program. For students not studying computer science, he suggested “learning a programming language” because “programming is becoming a basic requirement.”

For those who are computer science majors, Liu advised them to expand their horizons and explore other fields.

MioTech’s clients are expected to triple in 2018, according to Forbes. As for future plans, Liu said that the company has a broad goal of changing “how people work in the finance industry.”

]]>http://cornellsun.com/2018/04/08/c-s-alum-named-in-30-under-30-asia-for-financial-analysis-startup/feed/1Entrepreneur Alumnus Featured on the Forbes 30 Under 30 List Advises Students to Keep an Open Mindhttp://cornellsun.com/2018/03/28/entrepreneur-alumnus-featured-on-the-forbes-30-under-30-list-advises-students-to-keep-an-open-mind/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss
http://cornellsun.com/2018/03/28/entrepreneur-alumnus-featured-on-the-forbes-30-under-30-list-advises-students-to-keep-an-open-mind/#respondWed, 28 Mar 2018 04:44:00 +0000http://cornellsun.com/?p=2985899Micah Green ’18, who attended Cornell for one year before dropping out and forming his company Maidbot, gave student entrepreneurs advice in a talk Monday evening sponsored by Life Changing Labs at eHub in Collegetown.

Green began his talk by mentioning how he had always been interested in business, explaining that his entrepreneurship journey began at the age of only seven when he built “little companies” and sold things he found from his basement to his neighbors.

“My friend and I used our cuteness to our advantage to sell those things,” Green joked.

A few years later, Green decided to study entrepreneurship in the School of Hotel Administration. In the program, Green was required to enroll in a hotel operations class, where hotel students help run the Statler Hotel doing jobs like waitressing, working the front desk and, most notably for Green, housekeeping.

“Whenever someone had the housekeeping position it was always, ‘Let’s get this done as quickly as possible,’” Green said. “But within an hour I was so intrigued and this super boring-sounding position was exciting to me. I started thinking about how we could innovate housekeeping and commercial cleaning.”

From there, the idea for Maidbot was born. Green began to think of how to change something “that has stayed the same for hundreds of years” and saw an untapped potential robots could have in filling a job that he said was “dull, dirty and dangerous.”

“We started thinking, ‘What are some forever problems that will be around and are very frequent?’” Green said. “The floor cleaning aspect, you know, I’m not necessarily excited about vacuums, but the fact that it is something so core to operations means it’s going to be there forever.”

Maidbot then had its “first day” at Cornell’s 2015 Career Fair to “recruit talent with nothing but a logo, banner, and idea,” according to Maidbot’s website. Three years later, Maidbot, which now has 21 team members, is working on a Jetsons-inspired robot named “Rosie,” who will not only clean floors, but also collect data to “improve guest experiences,” according to the Maidbot website. In addition, Green reported that the company is working with some of the “largest hospitality companies in the world.”

“It’s really exciting to be going from a prototype and a proof of concept to a company and product and sales,” Green said. “It’s all happening at once so it’s a lot, but this is just the starting point.”

Green has been named to the Forbes 30 under 30 list and is a Thiel fellow, a grant given to entrepreneur students who “skip or stop out of college,” according to the fellowship’s website.

Along with sharing his journey, Green pointed out what he thought helped him along the way. One piece of advice he offered was the importance of keeping an open mind.

“I think life is all about perspective,” Green stated. “Everyone in this room has a different perspective — what’s interesting is that while we’re all at Cornell, we all came from all these different backgrounds. We’re really quick to judge, but it’s always good to talk to anyone — your Uber driver might give you the best advice of the year.”

Green focused on the emotional aspect of business as well and mentioned the importance of having good mentors and a positive working environment. But further, he noted the necessity of taking time to clear your mind.

“As stressful as everything will get, take a step back — that investment will help you move much more forward,” Green stated.

“We may build robots, but we’re not robots,” Green said.

]]>http://cornellsun.com/2018/03/28/entrepreneur-alumnus-featured-on-the-forbes-30-under-30-list-advises-students-to-keep-an-open-mind/feed/0Cornell Student Helps Develop Tech Startup Acquired by Harvard Student Agencieshttp://cornellsun.com/2018/03/01/cornell-student-helps-develop-tech-startup-acquired-by-harvard-student-agencies/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss
http://cornellsun.com/2018/03/01/cornell-student-helps-develop-tech-startup-acquired-by-harvard-student-agencies/#respondFri, 02 Mar 2018 02:33:26 +0000http://cornellsun.com/?p=2837560Rachel Goffin ’19 had a good excuse for not completing her problem set: she was working as a consultant for GoFundMe.

Goffin is a user experience researcher and the only Cornell member of the six-person founding team of Campus Insights, a tech consulting startup that Harvard Student Agencies recently acquired. The startup helps conduct user research and analysis for their clients’ apps and websites.

Goffin joined the team last November, and has since worked with clients including GoFundMe and Chegg.

“There was a crazy period where I had to do 16 interviews in one week for GoFundMe on top of my schoolwork; that’s the only time I’ve ever not gotten a problem set done,” Goffin said. “I would also be constantly on Skype calls. You get a lot of weird looks when you’re sitting on a Skype call in the middle of a library.”

She was inspired to go into UX research after attending a tech talk hosted by Google at Cornell.

“I realized that UX research was a perfect mix of my interests in psychology and technology since I’m an information science major,” Goffin said.

While she was looking for opportunities in the field, she got an email about Campus Insights from the Information Science Student Association listserv. As one of the founding members, Goffin had her “own role in defining the company.” She mainly worked with redefining content strategy and the user research process.

The acquisition marks an important step for Campus Insights, and Goffin will continue to help the startup with its transition in the near future.

“The acquisition is a really big deal for Campus Insights because it shows that this is something that is sustainable,” she said. “Now that it’s been acquired, I’m going to serve as more of an advisor, so whenever they need something, I’ll be able to help them with the project.”

As her role at Campus Insights shifts, Goffin is now working on user research with the Cornell Design and Tech Initiative, an engineering project team on campus. Additionally, she will be joining Hulu as a product management intern in the summer.

“The people who know me at Cornell know me more for what I post in the meme group,” Goffin told The Sun. “I think it’s kind of funny that I have all this other stuff going on and everyone is always like, ‘oh yeah, your memes!’”

]]>http://cornellsun.com/2018/03/01/cornell-student-helps-develop-tech-startup-acquired-by-harvard-student-agencies/feed/0‘Literally Endless’ Resources Help Support Student Startupshttp://cornellsun.com/2017/11/12/literally-endless-resources-help-students-balance-coursework-startups/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss
http://cornellsun.com/2017/11/12/literally-endless-resources-help-students-balance-coursework-startups/#commentsMon, 13 Nov 2017 01:45:38 +0000http://cornellsun.com/?p=2341229Colby Triolo ’19 is one of hundreds of students running a startup at Cornell, and she remembers the “very second” the idea for her startup came to her.

After suffering from post-concussion syndrome for almost two years, Triolo had her first headache free day in 724 days. Two weeks later, she was in the car with her dad explaining how she overcame her condition and was back to exercising. While talking about it she said the words “You make you,” and they both knew that this slogan was something that “needs to be shared.”

Flash forward three years and YouMakeYou® is now the name of Triolo’s startup, which focuses on happiness, healthiness and fitness.

Triolo said the entrepreneurship resources available to her at Cornell are “literally endless,” and for good reason. Entrepreneurship at Cornell — a university-wide program offering entrepreneurship services, programs and resources — offers robust support to aspiring student entrepreneurs like Triolo.

“What I think is amazing about it is that anyone can get involved, you just have to take the first step,” Triolo said. “I have learned that anyone,whether it be a professor or Cornell entrepreneur alum, is so happy to sit down with anyone and chat. If you are willing to put yourself out there, yes there are many resources.”

Cornell supports student entrepreneurs through programs such as eLab, which aims to help students juggle both their startups and school work at the same time. Triolo said eLab helps students by giving them school credits to work on their startups and helping them develop their startups through boot camps and coaching meetings.

In 1980, Donald Berens ’47 and Margi Berens ’47 created the Berens Professor of Entrepreneurship. Since then, additional donations and endowments has allowed Entrepreneurship at Cornell to expand into a campus-wide program governed by the deans of the 12 participating Cornell schools and colleges in 2014.

In 2016, Entrepreneurship at Cornell opened up two eHub locations, one in Kennedy Hall and another in Collegetown, to create a space for collaboration and entrepreneurship skills.

“eHub is our dedicated space for entrepreneurship where students are coming together to connect and develop their ideas. With over 15,000 square feet of open co-working space, it is the place to find other entrepreneurial students and pursue your project or venture,” said William Larkin ’14 of Life Changing Labs.

As of right now, there are over 4,000 registered eHub members.

“Many of our key entrepreneurship programs and initiatives take place in eHub including the eLab accelerator, Life Changing Labs, hackathons and more,” Larkin said. “Over the past four months alone, there have been a total of 277 events which include venture/project meetings, entrepreneurial club meetings, entrepreneurship workshop and classes, office hours, plus more.”

Cornell has expanded the entrepreneurial mindset beyond its undergraduate students to graduate students by launching Cornell Tech, which offers many different master programs, Ph.D.s, postdoctoral programs and a studio program.

Triolo participated in a three day hackathon from Nov. 3 to 5 and is now on the hackathon’s leadership board.

“The tools and resources gained in the three days are incredible and irreplaceable,” Triolo said. “You essentially build an idea from just that, a thought, to a full fledged product with business plan in 72 hours with the guidance of experienced entrepreneurs.”

Open to students and alumni, Life Changing Labs empowers the Cornell startup community in an eight-week long summer incubator program. During the program, each startup can receive mentorship from entrepreneurs and advisors and resources up to $100,000 in value.

Cornell Entrepreneurship Club president Peter Cetale ’19, who co-founded the app Religio at Cornell, met his chief technology officer Albert Caldarelli ’19 during his freshman year and, through Life Changing Labs, was able to create a development team.

“I would just say there are a lot of organizations on campus that can ease the balance for startup and school. An example would be the Cornell marketing organization that frequently works with startups to do customer discovery, marketing and public relations,” Catale said.

“I think it does a great job. I think it’s really necessary now to have incubator programs. You see a lot of businesses that are growing. I think it’s very smart that Cornell is doing things along these lines to allow these companies to grow very rapidly,” Cetale said.

]]>http://cornellsun.com/2017/11/12/literally-endless-resources-help-students-balance-coursework-startups/feed/1Alumna Spins Tech Experience into Gym Businesshttp://cornellsun.com/2017/09/26/alumna-spins-tech-experience-into-gym-business/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss
http://cornellsun.com/2017/09/26/alumna-spins-tech-experience-into-gym-business/#respondWed, 27 Sep 2017 02:31:37 +0000http://cornellsun.com/?p=2123268After launching her professional career in the high-tech industry, Chantelle Farmer ’91 MPS ’13 brought the high intensity of the industry into the gym.

Farmer has now been running her own group fitness classes in Ithaca through a business called the FLX Fitclub, since it launched in March. The name FLX, pronounced “flex,” comes from “Finger Lakes,” Farmer said, to emphasize the locality. She also decided to add Fitclub to the name to give the space a community feel.

After spending decades working in the tech industry as a web programmer and technical project manager, Farmer said she found herself in the world of fitness.

Her interest in fitness began in college with trips to the gym with friends. But it was not until she discovered group fitness classes did Farmer realize her interest could become something more.

“Somewhere along the way I started teaching group fitness classes and that was what I found I was really passionate about,” Farmer said. “I tried to think of someway to bring my background in working in startups and my love of group fitness [together].”

Michael Suguitan / Sun Staff Photographer

Jessica Kerns teaches a bodycombat class at FLX Fitclub, a fitness club founded by alumna Chantelle Farmer ’91.

Her previous career in the technology industry included work at a variety of startups. She said her work with small businesses gave her experience working many facets of a job that became necessary when starting FLX Fitclub. Within these small businesses, Farmer was able to contribute to varying aspects of marketing, accounting and brand management.

Beyond these professional experiences, Farmer found ways to link her Cornell background to her current work.

Explaining how she applied her masters in information science to the experience of running a gym, Farmer said that it came down to the user experience — something that can extend to a business model.

“I realized user experience isn’t just about technology. It’s about the experience a person has when they walk into your business,” she said. “Even if it has nothing to do with technology, every aspect of their experience is important. That’s something that I focused on in previous jobs and was able to take that out of the virtual world and apply it to the real world.”

Farmer’s engineering background was also useful in her current work at a the gym, she said, using the example of making a schedule.

“It is an optimization project, you have all these constraints that you have to think about and using those constraints make the best schedule you possibly can,” she said. “The way you think about it is from that form of logical training.”

Furthermore, when she was studying for her masters she was able to take business classes, Farmer said,

“I took a few classes in the Johnson school. The lessons that I learned in the business school were really valuable,” she said. “There is such a huge focus in that school right now in entrepreneurship.”

Since its opening in March, FLX Fitclub has experienced continual growth and membership within her gym. Farmer attributes this success to the community ties she and her team have throughout Ithaca.

“The reason why our business has been so successful in such a short period of time is because of all the connections that we have in the community,” Farmer said. “A lot of our business has come from word of mouth. In a small community like Ithaca, word of mouth is really powerful.”

One of the biggest attractions of FLX Fitclub is the community that the business fosters. Fitness is not always a priority for people and Farmer is trying to make it more enjoyable for people.

“People have a hard time justifying paying for something they feel is painful to them,” she said. In order to remedy that, they “try to do it make it enjoyable for people, make it a fun experience.”

The model of group fitness allows Farmer to make this sort of experience. Ithaca has been her home for a long time. When Farmer realized that the community needed the space that she was offering, she began FLX Fitclub to help those in the community.

“Some people come to meet people. It’s not so much about the working out, it’s more about the social aspect of it. We have tried to create an atmosphere where everybody is really friendly and welcoming,” she said. “I have seen people come in from out of town and not know anybody and they find friends.”

For Farmer, Ithaca is an “untapped market” in group fitness. She has many plans to expand her business, however she is currently limited by the size of her space. In the future, she wants to add more classes and potentially a gym space and bring people all across the Ithaca community together.

“Once they are there, everyone is on an equal footing,” she said. “Once you are there in your workout clothes, all the other stuff doesn’t matter.”

]]>http://cornellsun.com/2017/09/26/alumna-spins-tech-experience-into-gym-business/feed/0MALPASS | The Value of a Snaphttp://cornellsun.com/2017/03/08/malpass-the-value-of-a-snap/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss
http://cornellsun.com/2017/03/08/malpass-the-value-of-a-snap/#respondThu, 09 Mar 2017 03:24:32 +0000http://cornellsun.com/?p=1186461I have it, and if you have a smartphone, chances are you have it too. The little app that allows you to send timed photos to each other. But wait! You can also view little articles on Snapchat too, some can even be interacted with on the most basic level! Truly revolutionary. In all fairness, I don’t think there are a whole lot of people who would disagree with me. Yes, I suppose Snapchat is technically affecting the way we communicate, and I have no doubt someone’s writing a paper about it right now. But let’s be honest, no one ever sends anything worthwhile (I don’t care how important you think your memes are) and it was invented so people could send nudes to each other with a marginally lower chance of them being saved by the recipient.

My gripe isn’t with Snapchat as an app, but with how it and all other similar apps are perceived in the market. Snapchat is currently valued at $28 billion, according to a report by The Guardian.. Let that sink in. That little white and yellow rectangle you use to send bunny ear selfies to your friends is worth more than the GDP of Armenia. Snapchat makes up an elite group of startups known as “Unicorns,” fast growing, private companies that are valued at one billion dollars or more. Other notable Unicorns include Uber, Airbnb, SpaceX and Stripe. In fact, there are a couple hundred Unicorns around the world with hundreds of millions of users total. A decent number of these companies are mobile based apps, the sort we use everyday. And while the tech industry is currently booming with all these new companies, Unicorns or no, how long can it last?

There is good reason to hold reservations about the current tech boom. Yes, Silicon Valley is thriving right now because of these new startups, but what is the long term? Some of the darlings of the tech industry, including including Uber (valued at around $62 billion last year) and Airbnb (valued at $30 billion as of 2016), haven’t even gone public. Snapchat (under Snap Inc.) only recently went public, and while its stock enjoyed a momentary jump, it has since dropped below its original share price. In addition, despite its massive billion dollar valuation, Snapchat has only pulled in a couple hundred million in revenue. Substantial maybe, if it were not valued for far more. Even more damning is that the company has yet to turn a profit according to Forbes.

An alarming number of these Unicorns have no real means to generate revenue. Yes, Uber and others have actual means to generate income, but not nearly enough to warrant their estimated market value. Take Spotify: it may have a large user base and premium subscription plans, but it has to pay massive licensing fees. And what does Snapchat have? Advertising, and that’s it. No subscriptions, no micro transactions (perish the thought), even the app is free. Snapchat doesn’t sell anything; even Facebook gets by with selling our data.

Enthusiasm is at an all-time high for the startup industry, but the numbers aren’t keeping up. This should concern everyone because something similar happened around twenty years ago: the dot-com crash. Back when the Internet was brand new, everyone was rushing to invest in all the new websites springing up. However, it seems the dot-com companies simply couldn’t meet the astronomically high expectations. We’re seeing the same thing happen right now.

So while Silicon Valley may be essential to the economy of the United States, we need to be cautious moving forward with investing in these startups. While these companies may have shown they can attract a massive user base, they have yet to demonstrate that they can convert that into profit. I may continue to use Snapchat, Evernote and other Unicorn apps, but until they prove they business models are actually viable, I won’t be staking my life savings on their success in the public market.

]]>http://cornellsun.com/2017/03/08/malpass-the-value-of-a-snap/feed/0StartUp: Just Another One in the 50 Percenthttp://cornellsun.com/2016/09/12/startup-just-another-one-in-the-50-percent/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss
http://cornellsun.com/2016/09/12/startup-just-another-one-in-the-50-percent/#respondMon, 12 Sep 2016 23:54:11 +0000http://cornellsun.com/?p=547264More than 50 percent of startups fail in their first five years. Crackle’s new show will likely join that statistic in its first two: StartUp has all the makings of a top-tier prestige drama — dark lighting, sex scenes, cursing, screaming, serious themes — but comes off as totally average. It features strong (for the most part) performances and an intriguing concept, but doesn’t exactly hit its mark. What it lacks in quality, however, it certainly makes up for in heart. It is clear that StartUp is committed to its message but the follow-through just isn’t there.

StartUp tells the interweaving stories of four main characters living in Miami. Nick Talman (Adam Brody) is a straight-laced banker in way over his head cleaning up his money-laundering father’s mess. Phil Rask (Martin Freeman) is a smarmy FBI agent tracking the money moved by Nick’s father. Ronald Dacey (Edi Gathegi) is a high-ranking Haitian gangster, trying to protect his family and the owner of money which Nick’s dad moved. Finally, Izzy Morales (Otmaro Marrero) is a Cuban-American Stanford-alum desperate to get funds for the untraceable digital currency, GenCoin, that she created — the titular startup.

The stories come together as Nick invests his father’s laundered money in Izzy’s company after his bank turns her down, thinking that it’s the best way to move his father’s money while changing the future. They run into trouble when Ronald comes looking for his money. Izzy, savvy and determined, decides to pitch her idea for GenCoin to Ronald. Ronald does not think that GenCoin is as valuable as his missing cash, but decides to invest in it after Izzy stresses that it will revolutionize crime. Phil, the last piece of the puzzle, acts as the show’s antagonist, tracing GenCoin’s seed funding to Ronald’s dirty money.

StartUp takes place in Miami, allowing the show’s creative team to explore the dynamics between characters who differ in personality, motivation and culture. StartUp shows the tough reality of Haitian gangs, and focuses on the struggle Ronald faces to create a better future for his family. It also follows the lives of Cuban-Americans in depth when Izzy’s family sees her work as meaningless and a waste of her Stanford degree. Izzy’s mother has good intentions and wants more for her, hoping that she’ll take a high-paying job to escape their financial struggles rather than wasting time on a money drain idea. Overall, StartUp emphasizes that the “American Dream” does not come easily. Characters like Izzy and Ronald must make ethically complicated decisions in order to attain a better future for themselves and their families.

At face value, Izzy is the most interesting in the show. StartUp’s writers call attention to the fact that Izzy is very much in the minority as a Hispanic woman working in the male-dominated field of computer science. Izzy’s status as an ingenious programmer is never called into question or hedged. Unfortunately, her storylines fall flat when the writers lazily fall back on a tiring sub-plot concerning Izzy and her family, and fail to flesh out her motivation beyond saying that she wants to change the world.

Ronald’s subplots prove to be the most consistently engaging as he struggles to find a way out of the violent life he was born into and create a better life for his family. His motivation becomes ever clearer as he watches people in his community lose their loved ones to violence, and fears the same happening to his family. Edi Gathegi delivers an incredibly strong performance, portraying Ronald as formidable, but fearful for his family. Ronald instills fear in those he encounters, clearly demonstrating his high rank, but is much more resistant to unnecessary violence than his subordinates.

Martin Freeman also delivers as Phil Rask, a character who could easily become flat very quickly. It is unique to see Martin Freeman in a role where he is not easily loved. This fact, however, adds to the otherwise slimy character. Phil is dedicated to his job as an FBI agent and willing to prod and manipulate people to get what he wants. Because Freeman has this inherent likability, however, Phil is more than just a tough FBI agent: A snake, but a likeable snake nonetheless.

Overall, StartUp has all the right elements of a prestige drama, but just does not stack up in comparison to excellent shows like Mr. Robot, which examines similar themes of financial corruption and technology. While enjoyable and intriguing, StartUp would greatly benefit if its writers tightened its storylines and focused on meaningful character development rather than flashy themes.

Brynn Richter is a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences. She can be reached at ber65@cornell.edu.

The app’s expansion was successful because many Cornell students applied to become Joyrun campus representatives, citing Cornell’s close-knit community, convenient campus and Collegetown layout and proximity to food.

“We wanted to choose [to expand to] a community of students who are entrepreneurial and care about their school and want to see it improve,” said Campus Growth Lead Arsia Sarlak ’15, University of California, Davis, where the app was created.

Rather than hiring drivers to deliver food, Joyrun partners users who plan to pick up food at a restaurant with others on the app who also want to order, Sarlak explained. Deliverers can charge service fees at their own discretion.

Courtesy of Arsia Sarlak

Joyrun was founded at U.C. Davis last year and is expanding to Cornell with the support of several student ambassadors.

“Our whole ethos is that there are students going to those restaurants already, and we basically just tap into those people that are on their way,” Sarlak said. “You’re going back to the dorms or library or campus anyway, so just say that you’re going [to the restaurant] on our app. It’s a convenient and easy way to earn some money.”

Joyrun began last fall at U.C. Davis, and has since spread to locations from Duke to California Polytechnic State University. The app currently has over 500 registered users and is expected to continue to attract more, Sarlak said.

Caroline Tague ’19, who uses the app, said her experience with Joyrun has been “great,” adding that it is a convenient and easy way to make money while ordering food.

“I did a run to Starbucks for two people,” Tague said. “The only tiny mishap I had was that one of the orders wasn’t very specific, but I just had to call that customer and clarify and it was easily resolved.”

Tague said she believes that the app will be successful at Cornell because it has “some key differences from IthacaToGo and other similar companies.”

“The app is easy to use and free to download, which makes it accessible,” she said. “Another major perk is that there aren’t limited menu options — a user can request food from anywhere. Finally, every college student has ordered takeout at some point, and I don’t think this demand for food will decrease any time soon.”

Sarlak added that because Joyrun does not partner with restaurants, users can avoid the inconveniences that stores sometimes impose on delivery services.

“Traditional delivery services have minimums, menu restrictions and markups. We don’t have any of that,” he said. “Joyrun is a platform for people doing favors for each other.”

The meter, GluCase, utilizes smartphone technology to provide information to diabetes patients about their glucose levels.

“By seamlessly integrating a glucose meter, test strips and lancets into a smartphone case, it eliminates the need for a person with diabetes to carry bulky meters, test supplies and logbooks,” Abdelsalam said.

The project founders said that the name, AkibaH comes from ‘akiba haiozi’ — a Swahili proverb that meaning “a person with foresight will always know prosperity.”

The founders created GluCase to simplify a traditionally bulky and burdensome glucose meter into a form that could fit onto the back of a smartphone and appeal to a large audience, Abdelsalam said.

“AkibaH and the development of the GluCase began spring 2013 at Cornell in response to the team’s self-imposed challenge to drastically improve the lives of people living with diabetes” he said.

The group began as a collection of Cornell students with a background in engineering and data science, according to Paul Chang M.Eng. ’17.

Abdelsalam said that the founders are excited to realize the potential of health care technology in data science. “AkibaH focuses heavily on machine learning for personalized, data-driven care to empower patients,” he said. “As you increase the size of relevant data, you’ll begin to unlock extraordinarily insightful correlations among many different lifestyle factors.”

As a start-up specializing in data science and health care, the group found that their biggest initial challenge was making sure that they found a solution that fit the needs of their customers.

“After speaking with countless individuals living with Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes, we knew that one way to accomplish our goal would be to simplify the form factor of a traditional, bulky and burdensome glucose meter kit by integrating it with everyone’s most prized possession — our smartphone,” Abdelsalam said.

Cornell opportunities played a large role in steering the founder’s engineering back ground toward product design and development, according to Chang.

“I was friends with one of the founders, Haroon Ismail MBA ’13, and he reached out to me to see if I knew of any mechanical engineers that can help with developing the medical device,” he said. “After showcasing some of my past projects and demonstrating my skills in prototyping, I was soon developing the first iteration of the GluCase.”

After raising the necessary funds to launch the product on the crowdfunding platform, Indiegogo, AkibaH is in the process of beginning production and clinical studies this month, according to the group’s crowdfunding page.